1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an on-vehicle emergency report terminal device and system for placing a phone call in an emergency to an emergency report center via a cellular phone network in order to transfer the positional information about the call originator's vehicle and establish voice communication to convey the information about the emergency.
2. Description of the Related Art
A previously known, on-vehicle emergency report terminal device is used in the event of a traffic accident or sudden illness to place a phone call via a cellular phone network to an emergency report center automatically or by performing a simple manual operating procedure, transfer positional information, and request a police, fire department, or other emergency vehicle. When such an emergency report terminal device is used, the user can establish voice communication with the emergency report center through the use of a cellular phone and convey the information about the accident. The technology used for the above operation is disclosed, for instance, by Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 2002-187510.
In the event of a traffic accident, sudden illness, or other emergency, the conventional emergency report terminal device established a telephone line connection by originating a call via a cellular phone line. When the telephone line connection was established, the conventional emergency report terminal device performed a data communication process by transmitting the vehicle's unique number, the emergency report terminal device's unique number, the current positional information, the date/time of current positional information acquisition, the information about the route traveled by the vehicle, the dates/times of traveled route point recordings, the cause of triggering an emergency report communication process, and the phone number (local phone number) of the cellular phone used for telephone call origination. The local phone number is phone number data that the emergency report terminal device acquired from the cellular phone by issuing a local phone number request to the cellular phone. The emergency report center performed an emergency report communication process, for instance, by acquiring the positional information from the emergency report terminal device, and then disconnected the line. If it was necessary to talk with the vehicle's user who performed the emergency report communication process after line disconnection, the emergency report center called the local phone number of the cellular phone, which was transmitted at the time of data communication, and established a voice call line connection to obtain the information about the current situation. When the emergency report system described above was used after line disconnection to acquire the information about the situation or request any additional information, it was able to originate a call to establish voice communication and collect additional information because it knew the local phone number of the cellular phone used for reporting.
However, the emergency report terminal device for the conventional emergency report system performed an emergency report communication process by use of a cellular phone that was built in the emergency report terminal device. Therefore, a wireless communication device was required as a cellular phone that was capable of establishing data communication and performing a voice communication process. In addition, it was necessary to use an incoming voice channel for outputting the voice from the cellular phone to a loudspeaker and an outgoing voice channel for outputting the voice picked up by a microphone to the cellular phone. Further, if handsfree voice communication was to be effected, the use of an echo cancel circuit or other voice circuit was needed. The use of such a voice communication circuit enlarged the size of the emergency report terminal device and incurred an increase in the cost. In addition, in a situation where a contract was signed with a communications provider who provided telephone line connection for cellular phones, the service for providing both the data communication and voice communication functions was more expensive than the service for providing a data communication process only. That was why the widespread use of the emergency report system was discouraged. Further, since the cellular phone built in the emergency report terminal device was used for voice communication, the user had to stay in the vehicle to maintain voice communication. If the user left the vehicle that was endangered, the user could not maintain voice communication.
The present invention has been made to solve the foregoing conventional problems, and provides an emergency report terminal device and system for simplifying the structure of a wireless communication device that calls an emergency report center in an emergency report system and enabling the user to maintain voice communication with the emergency report center even when the user has to stay away from the user's vehicle.